The Croatian Spring: Nationalism, Repression and Foreign Policy Under Tito

by Ante Batovic

Nationalism is a key topic within Balkan Studies, and one of the driving forces behind the bloody and difficult history of the region. Using primary sources not previously utilized by western scholars, this book documents the 'Croatian Spring' - a national and liberal movement that began in the mid-sixties after the fall of the vice president and head of the Yugoslav secret police Aleksandar Rankovic. The author chronicles these developments of democratisation and de-centralisation of communist Yugoslavia, placing them in the wider context of the Cold War and Yugoslav relations with the Soviet Union and the UnitedStates. Tito managed to balance national stability and his relations with East and West, until he felt that the national-liberal movements challenged his authority, and thus threaten the very foundations of the Yugoslav state. From late 1971 onwards, the liberal political and cultural classes of Croatia and other republics were abruptly purged, impoverishing Yugoslav leadership for subsequent decades.Batovic also considers the role of the West, who felt a centralised and stable Yugoslavia was in their interests and quickly accommodated themselves to the repression of the reformist movement.

368 pages, Paperback

Published December 26, 2019

Reviews

[Aneta Vasileva · Rating 2 out of 5]

The more specific lessons of the period 1966–72 concern the interaction between liberalism, federalism and nationalism. In the West, modernisation and liberalism tend to be allied to federal systems, but in Eastern Europe, as the journal- ist Chris Cviić observed in 1972,2 nationalism has often been its ally, and the instrument by which Eastern European nations pursued liberty and democracy to escape the yoke of communism.